


Ghostwriter

by KS_Mullen



Category: LOVECRAFT H. P. - Works, The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Beauty and the Bestiary, Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Compulsion, Dread Powers, Epistolary, Eyepocalypse, From the Library of Jurgen Leitner, Gen, Graphic Description, Kidnapping, Leitner Books, Leitner origins, Leitners, Minor Violence, No Beta, Polyamory, Self-Mutilation, The Beholding, but I think I did Alright, can't have a magnus fic without em, canon-typical meatmen, compulsed mutilation, eldritch horror, elias ""offers"" a """"job"""" at the archives, fear mythos - Freeform, for the love of non-eldritch gods tell me if something needs a CW, lovecraft, lovecraftian references, transcript
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-12-03
Packaged: 2020-11-28 18:14:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20970884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KS_Mullen/pseuds/KS_Mullen
Summary: Records of Marcia Carter, employee of the Magnus Institute, Acquisitions Department.





	1. Ghostwriter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minor spoilers up to episode 102.

[CLICK]

**ARCHIVIST**

Statement of Marcia Carter, regarding her year-long disappearance, prolific writings, and lack of memory thereof. Recorded direct from subject, June 27th, 2017.

Statement begins.

**MARCIA**

I just… talk? Like I said, I don’t remember… much.

**ARCHIVIST**

Yes. Just start with… what can you recall?

**MARCIA**

Right, right. Sorry, I just - I’m much better at writing than speaking, have been since I was little.

See, I grew up in the Wyken suburb of Coventry and there was this… I can’t really call it a legend or a story even, just that it was _known_ that the yard of St. Mary Magdalene was a pirate grave. I was maybe six when the kids hanging around outside the church started daring each other: “run around the building three times to summon up the spectre of ol’ Rot Belly Bernard.” They were really pressing this one boy, younger even than me, and my burgeoning older-sister instinct kicked in and I volunteered.

Two-and-two-thirds the way around though, I tripped and dislocated my knee quite horribly and was hospitalized for almost three weeks. I don’t know if you’ve been in a children’s ward recently, Mister - um…?

**ARCHIVIST**

Sims.

**MARCIA**

Mister Sims, but no six-year-old on this planet will sit still for three hours, let alone three weeks, and with my parents raising the little one I mostly just did a lot of reading. A lot of reading. My parents could hardly keep up, and one day, out of books, I started dreaming up my own stories.

I loved storytelling, and the nurses seemed to enjoy my little tales, which gradually expanded until they couldn’t just be in my head. I snitched the clipboard to jot a bit down, only to find out it was my patient file and bother the doctor something terrible. It was funny, though, for him to flip the page: “The lateral collateral ligament was unharmed, and the dragon fell to the lady-knight’s - _wait_.”

[Marcia chuckles, sighs.]

Sorry, I hate lingering beginnings. I grew up telling stories and went to university in Coventry. My parents pushed for something more practical than just creative writing, so I took the full Literature and Language program. Eventually, with some really insufferable networking through an honors society, I got an internship with the Hurst Publishing House. I didn’t realize at the time that it was solely nonfiction publishing, and even if I met Kat and Tully there, it still felt like a waste of time - one that ended up coloring my pursuits down the line. I’ve since settled for a nearly full-time job at some tourist trap to keep me afloat while I work freelance, which is actually where this all starts.

I was contacted through my website to do a… biography of sorts. They were pretty vague, but I can work with vague - these kinds of things only come together with the help of the ghostwriter. Once we got things like pay and length and style sorted, I asked to do just one in-person meetup, to make sure all was in order. They agreed to meet at a shopping mall, not far from here honestly, but…

[Fingers tap against the table.]

I swear I was on my way there, running early even, but then I turned a corner, blinked, and sat up at my desk at home.

I’m… not a minimalist person and my desk is terribly cluttered - I keep extra pens, and the blank notebooks I collect, and even my stuffed kitten from my stay at the hospital… the apartment doesn’t allow pets - but my desk was clear. There was a light, and my favorite pen, and a small, grayish book, and that was it. It was terribly dark. Not night-dark, but… almost like when you get lightheaded, that blackness around the edges - tunnel vision.

I don’t think I ever decided to pick up the book, or my pen for that matter, but I did decide to open it. It was utterly blank.

I put pen to page and started writing. I told you I don’t remember what I wrote, but I don’t think this one was even in English. I just wrote, mindlessly.

A few days later, Kat checked in.

**ARCHIVIST**

Full names, if you’re able.

**MARCIA**

Right, um, Katelyn and Richard Tullefson. Kat worked at Hurst while I was there, and Tully worked across the street at our favorite coffee shop - whirlwind romance, that.

Kat checked in, and I was very nearly done. But she saw me and freaked right the hell out, which was fair. I hadn’t honestly been eating or sleeping much at all. She tried to talk me out of finishing up, but I was in the zone. And I don’t mean that like, “the zone, man,” I mean that place you slip into when you’re creating - art, music, storytelling - that, that thrall you sink into like the best hug in the world. And I should know, Tully gives hugs that are a very near runner up.

But I was in it, that thrall, and I finished the book that night. I’m sure now, that it wasn’t in English, because I looked at it for just a bit. It was too blocky, like it was written in all capitals, and had accents jumping up and down and off at angles. I only got to look for a moment, before closing it, crossing my arms, and falling asleep right there. I didn’t dream, I think.

When I woke up, the grey book was gone. I was still at my desk, but it wasn’t as dark - my little kitty was back, and everything else, and my apartment felt normal again. There was a new book on my desk, a white hardcover, almost like a textbook - something about anatomy, which means it was at least in English - and a note on top: “Exceptional and punctual; very well done, Miss Carter.”

[Pause]

I, um… my -

Growing up, my parents were either too close or distant. They fussed over and pressed me, or entirely ignored me, and I was more independent and s-stronger, I think, for it, but…. They never… expressed pride, outright or truthfully, rarely even wanted to read the things I wrote like they thought I would’ve grown out of it or something so that - that note. I was almost… deliriously happy. So I kept it up, kept writing.

I started and finished one every week, then every three days, then every two. Once I’d filled it cover to cover it would vanish as I slept - I even heard one go, just a flutter of pages.

**ARCHIVIST**

Do you recall what you wrote about?

**MARCIA**

Oh, a little of everything I think. A little scientific, a bit in Latin, some journal entries and a children’s book - I was much more varied than I ever was before. Stepping outside my comfort zone, I suppose.

**ARCHIVIST**

But do you remember titles, the subject matter?

**MARCIA**

I mean, I didn’t…. well.

I had dug so far in that, after a week or two Kat and Tully - staged an intervention, for lack of a better phrase. Kat pulled me out of my apartment, despite my protests that I had actually been eating and sleeping with… some regularity, and told me to go see Tully at the coffee shop while she cleaned up after me. I didn’t want to, but the fresh air was nice, just getting towards fall I think.

I talked with Tully, who said he’d walk me back after his shift, but while I was waiting, I met Jillian - I never asked her last name - who did this funny, Sherlock Holmes-thing where she guessed I was a writer by the ink on my hands and the bags under my eyes. We talked, and she asked what I was working on, and I told her. I could recall what I wrote, at the time - this one was about hunting, like a guide of some sort.

[Pause, soft snort.]

I think I actually _recited_ it.

Nothing happened, at first. She looked a little distracted, after, kept glancing away and back again. I’ve never been great at social cues, and honestly avoid eye contact when I can, but it was hard not to notice. At one point, she looked away, distant, and then just got up and left. I watched her go, picking at the chewed lip of the styrofoam coffee cup, and when I finally looked away it was in search of Tully. But I didn’t see him and decided to go home.

Jillian found me, maybe a block away, but she wasn’t…

She _stalked_, not in the following me around way but in the way she moved, slow and without hesitance, every step purposeful. She stopped me on the corner and talked about - about _bleeding_, and pelts and trophies. I didn’t even think, I just ran ahead into the street, past blaring horns and dimming lamp lights to the sidewalk on the other side. She was so fast, though, and when I felt her brush past my side to get in front of me, I turned blindly into an alley that was a dead end.

My lungs wouldn’t fill, even though I stopped having asthma in third grade, and I felt that - that tunnel vision coming back. This time, the only thing I could see was Jillian, at the mouth of the alley, dark growing around her, while her eyes were so very bright. She hadn’t had the knife before.

Then I woke up, in front of my desk.

And there was a monster.

I couldn’t see it, couldn’t see anything but my desk again, shadowy but clean, but I felt it in the room, the space behind me. The monster didn’t speak, but I _knew_ suddenly that they had destroyed Jillian, that they had - rescued me, brought me here.

They told me, as long as I was there, writing, I was safe.

So I wrote, and wrote and wrote, filling odd book after odd book with stranger and stranger tales. I didn’t get hungry, or tired, and with every pause upon closing the back cover, the monster - they sang my praises. “You’re doing well, so very clever, so _quick_,” and I think even patted my shoulder, my hair.

[Chair squeak, more finger-tapping]

Other monsters came. They were different, but also the same, and every time I felt them in the space behind me, or behind the desk, or circling, I couldn’t help but remember one of the stories I had written before. Some scoffed at the books that piled up on my left, at the very idea of being known, but they -

They said things like, “We’ve seen the way they work, the effect they have. We like it.”

They gave me… impressions, to write from. Feelings, ideas, sometimes words - English or otherwise - and I wrote from them. I used to write from dreams, filling in blanks and making jumps where needed, and this wasn’t much different. I wrote.

One of them hated it. Didn’t hate the book, or the idea of being known, or even hate _me_, really - I think it just _hated_. It just… violence, it just wanted violence, and didn’t plan or push or think, it just wrought and _tore _and **hated**.

I think it tried to hurt me. I was sitting, writing, when it came. It was behind me, just… seething. I felt heat, and maybe heard a scream or - or a song, and my back was burning, like a million little lashes, packed with salt like meat, for just a split second.

Then it was gone, and my monster was back. Cold, soothing, slowly warming - that embrace, that hug I mentioned earlier. I _knew_ then they had sent the other away, and wouldn’t hurt me. My monster kept me safe.

They told me I was nearly finished.

In that moment, that beat of not being in the thrall, I suddenly asked how long I had been there. They said it was nearly three years, and that I was doing _so well_ and assured me I could rest soon, but for the first time it didn’t help to know that. I wrote, and wrote, but it was… soured, now. By worry and - homesickness, I’d call it - for Kat and Tully and my family, everything I’d left behind.

But I _was _nearly done. I finished, cover to cover, the last book. I knew, even though I had never thought to keep track, that it was the one-thousand and first book. The monster didn’t say anything, certainly didn’t say goodbye.

When I woke, it was in bed. Not mine, but Kat and Tully’s. They fussed over me, made me eat and drink and not get out of bed because I would be too weak. When they said it been a year, a whole year but _only _a year, I was confused - more so when I saw the paleness of Tully’s face, the kind of scared-sad look in Kat’s dark eyes. Until I saw a mirror.

I’m only 25, Mr. Sims - this gray hair suits me about as well as yours suits you.

Kat and Tully are having me stay with them, and it’s nice - a move I don’t think any of us would have braved otherwise - but whenever they ask about what I happened I can’t… tell them. So I say I can’t remember.

By and large, I still don’t. Everything I wrote still eludes me, except when I sleep. I dream I’m back at the desk, and when I wake up I have just a phrase or two… ‘a thousand shapes of horror beyond all memory.’

But, when I woke up, I _knew_ that I needed to come here. I thought I was being polite, calling ahead, but when I arrived you looked uneasy. And, now I can’t help but see that same sad horror in your face that I saw in Kat’s.

Might I ask, what bothers you?

[Long pause, a shuffling of papers and the slide of a light weight across the table.]

[Marcia breathes out, loud but controlled.]

**ARCHIVIST**

You recognize it then. Oh, and - _Statement ends._

**MARCIA**

“A Disappearance.”

Poignant, but I don’t recall what it’s about.

**ARCHIVIST**

It is not so much a question of what it’s about, Miss Carter -

**MARCIA**

You can call me Mickey, everyone since uni has.

**ARCHIVIST**

Alright - what the books are about might demonstrate what they do, but it's what they _do_ that matters.

**MARCIA**

What they… do?

**ARCHIVIST**

Yes, yes, this one, for instance, can hide or completely vanish the reader, depending on how much is read. Others you mentioned, that book in Latin, the - the children’s book, all of them used to belong to a man named Jurgen Leitner.

[Shuffle]

Here, the label; he collected them, almost a thousand before his library was destroyed, and they were scattered in… in 1994. How -

[Door opens]

**ELIAS**

Ah, glad I caught you. Miss Carter is it?

**MARCIA**

Y-yes.

**ELIAS**

Good, good. I heard about your situation from Rosie, at the door, and may have - overheard the last portion of the conversation.

If Jon is right, and I believe he is, I would like to offer you a position here at the Institute.

**ARCHIVIST**

You - I don’t – Marcia…

**MARCIA**

What kind of position?

[Chuckles weakly.]

Better than the register, at least?

**ELIAS**

Hopefully, yes. And provisional, if you’d prefer. All we’d need you to do is, every time you recall one of the books, make a note - a file, maybe even a short statement - of what it was about, looked like, was titled. This would make it easier to find them in the future, before they can cause any harm.

**MARCIA**

They do...hurt people then. Or - or cause people to harm others, the way Jillian….

**ARCHIVIST**

They do, but you needn’t feel responsi--

[Interrupting]

**ELIAS**

But you needn’t feel scared. As long as you work here, you’ll be safe.

[CLICK]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright this really is the first fic I've ever posted to AO3 (thought I've been writing plenty elsewise.)
> 
> More than open to beta/suggestions, as I wrote this the same day I'm posting. Just real hype about this fandom, and I'm not going to change a whole lot if I learn there's canon 'origins' for the books. I have ideas for a follow-up, but not a series, unless people get invested.  
(other chapters won't be epistolary, unless they are.... not my wheelhouse)
> 
> Also if you can recognize what's Lovecraft I'll send u an animal gif
> 
> uhhhh find me at prazzlwurm.tumblr.com or @Kylie_SM3645 on twitter ;P


	2. Daidala

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Statement of Marcia Carter, taken by Peter Lukas, in regards to her employment at the Magnus Institute.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers up to episode 123-ish.

[CLICK] 

** PETER LUKAS **

Whenever you’re ready, Ms. Carter. 

** MARCIA **

I just don’t see why you need my statement in particular.

** LUKAS **

No need to be sullen. 

** MARCIA **

I'm not – and if I was it's not like – 

[Pause.] 

Fine, _ fine. _

I was in Artifact storage when Hopworth – 

** LUKAS **

Putting away the Leitners you've collected, yes?

** MARCIA **

Yes. 

** LUKAS **

How is that going, by the way? I know Elias assigned you those duties a little more than a month before I came to – 

** MARCIA **

Before he left_, _ yeah. A month of normal before it all went to hell, but you know plenty I’m sure_. _Anyways, I was upstairs and heard – 

** LUKAS **

Ah, slow down, Ms. Carter. Why, even after all this time I’ve hardly seen you about, hardly met you and don’t much know what it is you do at the institute, which leaves me at a disadvantage, don’t you think? And you must be feeling a little awkward, here, so why don’t you start from the beginning? 

** MARCIA **

Alright. 

I started, like you said, about a month before Elias left_. _ I was supposed to come in whenever Iremem – had information about the Leitners, any descriptions or titles, and I had actually been making, I think, some pretty good strides. I started keeping notes, and those lead to two or three being found in my first two weeks: “The Quaquaversal Bestiary” and... Walsh’s “Meat Machine.” 

I was feeling _really good_, after finding out what those were doing to people, what they were turning people into. I had…. 

When that woman had come in with her little boy and a _ coloring book _of all things, I saw the – the scales and the hair and the _compound fucking eyes._Well, I guess I suddenly had the drive to find these things, take them out of the world. So yeah, I got a little more involved, starting spending time with the – the researchers and the people in artifact storage learning about the few books and objects we had locked away. I even listened to a few s-statements to… catch up, I guess. Find some direction. I was on my own for a lot of it, I’ll admit, with Mr. Sims and the assistants being… otherwise occupied, but I felt like I was doing alright. Then – 

Then one day, I came in and Tim was _dead_. 

I hadn’t known the guy, much. I don’t think you’re the gossiping type, so I guess I would go so far as to say I didn’t like him, much, either. Y’know, he’s the one that gave me that horrid nickname during those first few weeks, after “Quaquaversal” got put away. He either thought it was legitimately funny, or he thought calling a girl “Beauty and the Bestiary” behind her back was some kind of compliment, or he was just being cruel. Not exactly unusual, that. 

God, I shouldn’t be – not when he's _dead. _

But Tim was dead, and Daisy was missing and _Jon _was in a _coma_ if they’re still calling it that. Basira comes back, looking in a right fury, and she and Martin…. 

Elias_ left. _

And the Institute got… lonelier. 

** LUKAS **

Mm. Now, as the new director, I should at least follow up on this: is it true you took one of the Leitners out of the Institute? 

** MARCIA **

I – nobody got hurt, really, and I brought it – 

** LUKAS **

I’m not seeking to punish or fire you, Ms. Carter, just that there are some rules that need to be enforced about taking out – research materials, let's say. 

** MARCIA **

Y-yeah, that’s… yes, I did. I took out research materials and – brought my work home with me. 

[Rustling.] 

[Speaking, muffled through her hands.] 

That’s where things really started going sideways, I think. 

After Elias left, I came back expecting the worst. I don’t know – it's not like I thought the archive would collapse overnight without him there, it – _I _just.... 

I expected changes, changes that – aside from your arrival, really – I didn’t actually get. The archive is remarkably adept at just kind of chugging along on its own, taking in and categorizing and storing information unwat– unattended. What I did come back to, however, was a Leitner and a note left for me. 

“A Disappearance,” by an unknown author. The note said, “For your discretion; at your discretion.” 

It – I'm _not _going to read from it or tell you what it said, but the book itself was about a series of missing persons cases going unsolved throughout London. No conclusion or explanation, it just ended on with a disappearance on the outskirts of - 

** LUKAS **

You read it? You _finished _it? 

** MARCIA **

Y...yes. 

[A squeak of a chair.] 

I knew then, that something was wrong. I didn't... precisely _know_ what that Leitner did – I mean, I had some guesses – but I started to wonder if they ran out of power somehow or got... _full._

I recalled, then, something from my s-statement, and decided to take the book home to research where no one could get hurt. It was... a really dumb move. 

See I had the thought that it didn’t affect me to just read it, but going off experience I didn’t want to read aloud, _here,_ in case – in case. So, I took it home and proved myself right: reading just a line or two out loud had the effect of making one invisible, undetectable unless they made a sound. 

I was testing if there was a limit on how close to the book I had to be for that to work, as dropping it had no effect, when Tully got home from work. Early. 

He called out that he was home and, unthinkingly, I responded. Of course, I was invisible, and it freaked him right out so while I waited for the effect to fade, I told him... I told him everything, honestly. It was nice to get it off my chest with someone that wasn’t... nonplussed, the way the Archive people tend to be. At some point between telling him about the thing with Jillian and the m-monster, I saw him pick up “A Disappearance” and I nearly screamed. 

He – he flickered, a bit, and I did scream. He must have only read a word or two.

That made him drop it and come back to normal, but it also let me know that the book wasn’t any weaker than the rest, that it certainly hadn’t had its fill. That they hadn’t had their fill. 

[Drawn pause.] 

After all that, we decided not to tell Kat right away – I swear I meant to, but involving her, by choice, felt wrong at the time. Tully was supportive as I began to experiment with reading versus speaking and over the course of the next three months, between relaying descriptions of the books and occasionally stumbling upon one, I... improved. I memorized, I affected, I could almost _feel _when one was nearby. 

I brought home others, nothing dangerous like the ‘Quaquaversal’ or – _eugh_ – “The Meat Machine.” I brought more books to the Archive, and I sometimes slipped them away overnight to learn more about them. Let me tell you, the clean up on Beckett’s “How It Is” was a goddamn nightmare. It wasn’t until I brought back “House of Leaves” that I slipped up. 

I had thought that we were staying out of Kat’s hair, keeping her out of the loop because – well, she’s pretty much the breadwinner, we didn’t want to put any stress on her that we could avoid. I didn’t realize, until “House of Leaves,” that this meant we had been avoiding _her_ entirely. 

Kat found ‘House’ and, even though I managed to pull her out of it, didn’t escape the pages unscathed. She told us she was being followed, that her reflection didn’t look right – was too blond had... had too many bones – I thought she meant after reading the book, told her it would go away. 

She said it had been happening for _weeks_. 

I stopped bringing the books home, after that. Kept myself – my research to the backrooms of Artifact storage, where shit like ‘Meat Machine’ and... and _Dig is_ kept locked away. I never cracked the seal on _Dig. _After listening to the statement, I didn’t need to. 

Then this shit happened. 

[Squeal of chair legs, faint jittering.] 

[Voice distanced from the recorder.] 

I was up there when they broke in. I only came down when I heard the screaming. 

I gotta say, of all the... subjects that I’ve been dealing with, books or monsters or whatever, of all of them I’m most _not good _with the... meaty ones. 

By the time I got downstairs, it was already chaos. They were wrecking furniture and tossing file boxes, tipping over whole stacks – twenty-foot-high, metals stacks filled with decades of records that must have weight tonnes but they just _ripped them _out of the floor. There was three or four of them, I think, and they had already chased off Martin and Melanie and – 

[Jittering stops, faint choking noise.] 

God their_ skin_, just stretched over knots of muscle and knobs of bone, thin as saran wrap, draped and hanging where they had just slid the bone out, discarded limbs and replaced them with more muscle, with fists and claws. 

The stack in front of the door to the stairs started to tip, and I ran out into the archive – I, I couldn’t _stop _myself from screaming, and when they spotted me it was with a _roar _that... I don’t think human vocal cords, a human throat could make. I have to wonder if they were – broadening their horizons, y’know? 

** LUKAS **

Mm. How did you know about the tunnels? What... prompted you to escape there, instead of outside as Martin and Melanie did? 

** MARCIA **

I – um. I think Elias showed them to me at one point, or maybe even Basira. They both said it was locked, that I couldn’t and shouldn’t ever go down. It didn’t occur to me until I was through the trapdoor that this might’ve been where they had gotten in. 

It was exceptionally dark down there, suffocatingly so. I was blind running through, going more off of sound than anything – pulling out my phone meant light to find me by, and surely cell signal was impossible and... 

And I had left all the Leitners upstairs. 

I hit a goddamn dead-end, solid stone, and the roars behind me echoed off of it until I thought my ears were bleeding. I couldn’t breathe down there, and even with the darkness, I could feel my vision blacking out around the edges. They didn’t stomp so much as_ slough _across the stone at the mouth of the tunnel and I slumped down to the floor, knees pulled up and my hands pressed to my mouth. Small and still and silent as I could be through my sobbing, I tried to disappear, and found myself without even _ realizing_, reciting, 

“When the lights of London died and darkness filled its streets on the night of December 18th, there was a disappearance.” 

The feeling was... more pronounced, somehow. In the dark, I couldn’t see the fog but I felt the cold moisture against my skin, felt my breath mist against my hands, the knees of my trousers. 

One paused in the hall I'd come from, and the other started shifting, sliding down the floor of stone towards me. They run warm, you know. Maybe it was the cold the pressed into me, between the fog and the stone, but the heat he radiated – it was like standing next to a steam radiator, hot and sticky and clinging and_ rank_. A dozen armpits, I’m sure, and not a thought spared for a can of deodorizer.

From beyond the mouth of the tunnel, back the way we’d come, there was another scream. 

I think I recognized it, now that I look back. It was the tearing kind of scream, the bloody kind that made you hear the shudder and vibration of the vocal cords in the throat like the squeal of a viola and it – it had a kind of song to it. 

The... _meatmen_ perked up at it. I think they recognized it, too. 

Next thing I knew,_ Melanie _of all people came tearing down the hall at the mouth of my tunnel, and the leader – Hopworth – just _ran. _There still wasn’t any light in the tunnel, but I swear on my writing hand that I could see the fucking bowie knife in her hand bright as a torch. 

The one left in my tunnel, hidden as Melanie tore past, started to follow her. 

In my gut, I knew that she could_ beat _two on one – already must have, considering the other two still upstairs hadn’t followed at any point – but I wasn’t sure she’d survive if this one snuck up on her. 

I held onto the fog and followed itas it followed her. 

I saw the door open up as Hopworth howled for it, saw the woman with too blond hair and her terrible hands – I saw Melanie drop the knife, exhausted, and saw a dozen, skinless hands reach for her from the dark. 

And from behind _it,_ I cast aside the fog and pulled on the suffocating darkness instead. 

And I told it to** _Dig _ ** _ . _

[Extended pause.] 

** LUKAS **

And...? 

** MARCIA **

Many hands make light the load, Mr. Lukas. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have two more chapters plotted out, and a nebulous idea for a closer once the last season rolls around *peace sign*  
Again, don't hesitate to bring up any suggested CW or edits, as this story is unbeta'd and just kinda spilling out onto the page at this point.


	3. Air Trance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Recorded conversation between Marcia Carter and Jonathan Sims, the Archivist, upon her return to the Archive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers up to episode 130.

[CLICK]

[Wooden clattering, rummaging sounds]

  
**ARCHIVIST**

What on – oh. It's a... that’s not a very light hand of you, but... _eugh_, cobwebs.

[Distant footsteps.]

[Chair creaks.]

Oh I – I was just about to... I was going to use that. I suppose -

[Footsteps pass by, heavy-soled and dragging.]

Was that – Marcia? Marcia are you - 

[Chair squeaks.]

[Further away]

Marcia! When did you get back?

**MARCIA**

[Distant]

Just now. I’m headed upstairs to -

**ARCHIVIST**

Do you have a minute? To – catch up?

[Pause.]

**MARCIA**

Yeah.

[Heavy footsteps return, chairs squeak, an enormous, clothy thud.]

Glad to see you up and about, Jon.

**ARCHIVIST**

Glad to see you as well, Mar – do you still prefer Mickey?

**MARCIA**

I don’t.

**ARCHIVIST**

Oh.

**MARCIA**

What did you want to catch up on? I’m sorry I didn’t come to see you, by the way, I just -

**ARCHIVIST**

Oh, no worries, I’ve been back a few days and you haven’t missed – ah, well there were a few things...

**MARCIA**

I already know about Melanie. I’m glad you were able to... help her with the _thing_ in her leg.

**ARCHIVIST**

Right, yes did – did Rosie tell you?

**MARCIA**

No.

**ARCHIVIST**

...right. 

[Fingers tap on the desk.]

Well that’s - that’s certainly a collection, you’ve brought. Are they... _all_ Leitners?

**MARCIA**

They are.

**ARCHIVIST**

Isn’t it a bit - _dangerous_ to carry them around with you?

**MARCIA**

Most of them are neutralized.

**ARCHIVIST**

Oh, that’s what the – stuff on your forearms is.

[With nervous jest]

I thought you had gotten some tattoos, something... avant-garde.

**MARCIA**

No, just ink. It fades after a few days, leaves the skin a bit gray though. Some of them struggle.

**ARCHIVIST**

Oh.

Why not neutralize them all?

**MARCIA**

Some of them fight back, like I said, and have to be contained or properly destroyed. Some of them are useful.

**ARCHIVIST**

Useful?

**MARCIA**

Mhm. Did you by chance listen to the ‘statement’ Lukas took a while back?

**ARCHIVIST**

I... I did. I’m sorry if that was any kind of breach of privacy, but it was sitting on my desk, actually. Can you really -

**MARCIA**

Yeah.

[Extended pause.]

**ARCHIVIST**

[Quietly]

You’ve changed a bit, haven’t you, Marcia?

[Pause.]

**MARCIA**

[Dryly]

Working in Acquisitions will do that to you. The kinds of things we bring in...

Over the last few months, here, I’ve found almost two hundred Leitners, Jon. I might break two-hundred today, with this bunch.

[A thump; she kicks the bag.]

Between ‘Extinct for a Reason’ and ‘The King in Yellow,’ I’ve seen these things wipe entire cities from the map and memory, seen them puppet people and bring monstrosities of metal and mud to life, seen the carnage that just the _mention_ of ‘the yellow king’ will drive people to create.

[A huff.]

On the topic of madness, should you...encounter the Distortion again any time soon, don’t tell them I’m back, yeah?

**ARCHIVIST**

W-what? Why?

**MARCIA**

“The House of Leaves.” It’s a great read, out of all of them, but I – I may have _pulled_ open their door. By force. 

….Twice.

They didn’t appreciate it, and I doubt they will -

**ARCHIVIST**

[Rushed]

Do you - do you think you could pull someone out of the – the door? Save them?

**MARCIA**

[Measured, soft]

I don’t think I could. Nor out of the clutches of any other power, if that’s what you had in mind. It’s a bit of a one-way street with these things.

**ARCHIVIST**

[Frustrated]

How do you know? Have you tried, have you -

**MARCIA**

Jon. You don’t need me to answer that. You don’t _want_ me to.

**ARCHIVIST **

[Deflating]

You’re... you’re right.

Besides, that’s not quite what I meant. Something about you changed... relatively recently.

[Pause.]

**MARCIA**

[Wryly]

Well, _well_, Mister Sims.

I won’t make you ask. If you must _know_, however.

See, after that statement, _Director_ Lukas gave me some vacation time, with no room for misunderstanding about how long I should be away. Paid leave, interestingly, and an offer to fly me just about anywhere. Now, what’s a twenty-something to do with a free plane ride and a month’s leave? Well, where better to escape the winter of the Isles than to the sunny Mediterranean?

Tully couldn’t join me – what coffee shop can you think of that does extended leave? - but Kat was dying for a getaway and had some leave herself. She cut a deal with the old Hurst House that if she went to Rome, took some kickass pictures of the place, great notes, and wrote up something workable before she got back, they’d let give her an extra week of pay as a commission. I cut _her_ a deal that I would be the most normal, cringe-worthy tourist I could be. Nothing spooky, no _light reading_. We were off not long after the new year

Lukas’ plane lands at the Roma Urbe, and I am _reminded_ that I don’t get a vacation, not really.

While Kat’s inside calling up a ride to the hotel, I step outside for some fresh, _italiano_ air. Not thirty seconds on the streets of Rome and this guy just shoves into me.

He’s thin, absolutely pallid, and his eyes are just... milky. Pupils and irises visible, washed out but teared up like they’ve been open for far too long. Bumps into me, and drops – what else, Jon, a _book_. Milky white cover with what looks like Scrabble pieces for a title. He drops the book and, before I even finish picking it up, walks in front of a bus.

It took fifteen excruciating seconds for the bus to pass me by fully, slamming on its breaks. I got to watch him ragdoll under the front tires, crumple and split and shatter, then under the back tires.

The book in my hands is “The Age of Wire and String,” by Ben Marcus.

I made sure Kat didn’t notice. Nothing spooky. I hid the book, and we took the door on the other corner of the building so she only saw the police lights in the cabbie’s rearview mirror. Instead, we get to the hotel, unpack, and start our vacation. I won’t bore you, seeing how much you got out and about last year. But know that people weren’t kidding, way back when they came up with, “All roads lead to Rome.”

When you look at the numbers, Rome isn’t a particularly big city, but it is an important one. We took our tour, and I started to tune in just as everyone seemed to tune out. Rome is what they call a node in the global network. There are rankings, and again it doesn’t come up terribly high but they place an awful lot of focus on _money_.

If it was ranked by influence, by _connection_, Jon, it would rank differently.

Rome today is the center, the anchor point of a network of influence that spans the globe and no it isn’t just the church. It's _history_. The history left in the stones, worn into the paths and washed from the fountains, its two, three thousand years of cultural memory embedded in the dirt beneath every step.

Our... our last stop was in the catacombs.

_Fucking hell_, Jon, do you know how many boxes that ticks?

**ARCHIVIST**

You know about - 

**MARCIA**

Of course, I know. I didn’t have the courtesy of Jurgen goddamn Leitner explaining it to me, or one of you, or slowly piecing it together, I had Tsiolkovky’s “Will of the Universe, The Unknown Intelligence.” A little gray book, written in cyrillic – you might have heard of it – that only told me as much as I told it.

So, I told it _everything_.

Only I didn't think to ask until I got back from “vacation.”

We... we were touring the catacombs of Domitilla, some of the longest, deepest tunnels, thousands and thousands of tombs, the church itself sunken a couple meters into the ground, surrounded by a dozen people we didn’t know in a country whose language we didn’t speak. It was the dark that got her, though. A half dozen possibilities and it was the simplest, most basal fear that got Kat.

It was _crushingly_ dark, and the cold just sucked the breath out of your chest. The tour-able tunnels are well lit, but she was walking behind me and... I glanced back and she wasn’t there anymore, and the lights had gone out. The darkness was just yawning. Inviting, _mocking_. Our tour group moved on, and the inky black licked at the walls. I couldn’t hear her, but I _knew_ she was there, close, a lure. I --

Working here I memorized parts of “Through Wooden Eyes,” capable of paralyzing, parts of “House of Leaves,” for a quick escape, even some of the recreated Kanamit cookbook from the Twilight Zone - “To Serve Men.” Just in case.

I didn’t have anything that would fight off the darkness. Nothing that would bring her back.

Even standing in the light of the tunnel lamps, I felt the black creeping in around the edges of my eyes – I had thought it had something to do with the m-monster, the focus on creating the books, even using the Leitners but... it was just panic. The whole time. Pure, human panic.

[Voice shakes.]

[Pause.]

[Composed.]

But I had something _new_.

In the jaundice-yellow light, I pulled the little white paperback from where I had tucked it into my sweater.

And I read.

I found something I thought would work, right in the first section, even as it made my skin crawl. ‘_But it is always there, that moving into a static-ridden corpse that once spoke familiar messages in the morning whe... when the sun was new_.’

The lights didn’t magically come back on, down the tunnel, but the ones behind me strengthened, and in them, I could just make out Kat’s silhouette, the pressed white cuffs of the button-up blouse. Her shoulders were slack, as she stepped forward out of the darkness. As I pulled her out.

I took her hand, and we budged passed the tour group, and the guide only cast us a pitying look as we scrambled back up the stairs, out of the church and into the blindingly bright day outside.

She didn’t... come back to herself, until we saw the sun. And when she did, she threw up in the too-green grass beside the road. On the flight back, two days later, she described the feeling of losing her mind. Very literal, she said, like she had just misplaced the – the present-ness, the sense of direction and time and self. Even if it was just the half-minute, just the world being drowned out by the sound of _my voice_ and the choking grip of darkness turning into a gaping void of _being unmade_, it had been the worst half-minute of her life. She said that the term ‘walking dead’ had never struck such a chord.

That was the last thing she said. To me, at least. She went back to Tully, and I... wasn’t welcome anymore. Not that they’d say it, but what do you say to someone who killed you, even for just a moment?

I made myself busy. I did good work, protecting people from these things, destroying them. I told myself I wouldn’t use that book again, but that was a lie; ‘Wire and string’ has been just too...conducive.

**ARCHIVIST**

You... pulled her out, though. Using it.

**MARCIA**

I won’t -

**ARCHIVIST**

[Overlapping]

Daisy, it’s Daisy - she’s trapped in a coffin that aligns with the Buried. If you could just try to pull her out of it -

**MARCIA**

[Interrupting]

Don’t you get it? What that would do to her? I can’t do that to – to someone who doesn’t deserve -

[Sharp sigh.]

It won’t work, Jon.

**ARCHIVIST**

[Explosively]

How do you know! How are you _sure_ you know the extent **of your power?**

[A well of static, pause.]

[Chair squeals.]

Mar-Marcia, I’m sorry I --

[Cut off.]

**MARCIA**

[Lowly]

It’s a good question, Jon.

[A new tone; exceptionally low in pitch.]

[With deep reverberation.]

**“It is a mode entered by flaxen tree tools...north of its leaves, the tool is used to call wasps into the bore to shape the angels as they are wept against the grass.”**

[A choking shudder from the Archivist.]

[The deep tone fades; the Archivist gasps.]

**MARCIA**

[Quietly.]

I hope that answers your questions, Archivist.

[CLICK]


	4. I, of the Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Recorded conversation between former Director Elias Bouchard and Marcia Carter, prior to the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for graphic, sound-based description of self-mutilation.  
Spoilers up to and through episode 160.

[CLICK] 

[Crickets, traffic in the background.] 

[Distant steps, growing nearer.] 

[A rustle of leaves.] 

[A step.] 

**ELIAS **

Oh, hello Miss Carter. 

**MARCIA **

Hello, Elias. 

Enjoying your vacation from the Archives? 

**ELIAS **

The sun has been a bit much, but the wine has been an undeniable bonus. I must say, I had hoped I’d ventured far enough from the Archives that it would be more difficult for any of you to find me – don't tell me I came all the way to California for just three weeks of peace? 

**MARCIA **

Three weeks is generous, after the state you left the Archives in. They were still mopping up blood and pulling bits of intern from the rafters, when I left. 

**ELIAS **

And Daisy, Basira? 

**MARCIA **

Can’t say I’ve heard from them. 

**ELIAS **

Ah, what about Martin and _Jon_, dear? 

**MARCIA **

I think you already know, and do _not_ call me that. 

**ELIAS **

But Miss Carter, we were so - 

[Sharp, metallic sound.] 

Ah, right. Now, what do you plan to do with that little knife, Marcia? 

**MARCIA **

Nothing. 

[Six, quick steps, echoing off stone.] 

**ELIAS **

...Marcia? 

[Low tone, resembling the vibration of a cello, rising in volume.] 

**MARCIA **

According to “The Stalwart Hunter’s Almanac,” **You’re going to want to start at the elbows. **

[Pause.] 

[A rustle.] 

[A slick sound.] 

[Elias shouts, cut off.] 

**MARCIA **

**Be quiet, while you’re in the woods.**

Not too deep, now, _Director. _

**Circle the blade around the outside of the _biceps brachii,_ then draw a clean line up the center of biceps towards the armpit.**

**ELIAS **

[Elias groans.] 

[Gasping] 

S-stop this, Marcia. You’re going to kill me. 

**MARCIA **

If I wanted to kill you, I would have started with _Field Dressing._

**Switch to the opposite arm, and repeat. **

See, Elias, if I wanted to kill you, I would have shot you - hidden from the Eye with “A Disappearance.” If I wanted to kill you, I would have opened the Spiral’s door and shoved you into it. If I wanted to kill you, I would have just told you to _dig_. 

**Stop at the armpit. **

[Dripping, harsh breathing.] 

**ELIAS **

Then why... are you here? 

**MARCIA **

Here, in Santa Clara? In the courtyard of the single largest repository of information in the world? Home to twelve _petabytes_ of personal data, pillars of the internet and surveillance state alike? I imagine it's for a reason very similar to your own, Elias. 

You see, after you left the first time, I did some very good work. Doubled the number of Leitners collected in the Archive, and destroyed or neutralized a nearly equal number. Then, for nearly half a year I went about finding the rest. Five months of globe-trotting, seeing the worst the Dread Powers had to offer us, seeing the _things_ those books - _my books_ \- left behind. All the time wondering, why did this have to happen, why did this start, _why me?_

I came back to the Archives without answers and found it in ruin. I start thinking, maybe it isn’t about the why. Not the why, or the how; the better question became, what now? 

My first instinct was to burn down the Archives, I’ll admit. 

[A rustle; a splash.] 

Ah, ah, **keep the knife between the skin and muscle, and begin pealing. **

[Elias yells, choked into silence.] 

[Splashes, dripping.] 

**Stop at the shoulder. **

Move again and we’ll have to jump ahead to _Gutting_. 

But burning the rest wouldn’t get me anything at this point, and Basira had taken over anyways. 

[Chuckle.] 

Gave everyone _bereavement_ leave. Doubled the pay, first. 

I began looking into... alternate resources. 

It was a children’s book, in the end. “A Guest for Mr. Spider.” 

Once I was _in situ_ with the Mother of Puppets, I hardly even had to name my price for leaving the book where many would find it, and few would go looking for them. Under the seat of the New York City underground, seemed fitting enough. She has two faces, you know; Arachne versus Ariadne, as I’ve come to think of it; one that traps, one that leads. 

And what do you know, the purveyor of the _world wide web_ has just as vested an interest in this place as you do. Couldn’t let you go switching the _alignment_ of it. She led me, unerringly, to you. 

[Pause.] 

[Softly] 

Elias? 

[Dripping.] 

**ELIAS **

Yes, Miss Carter? 

**MARCIA **

I want to remind you: 

**Be quiet in the woods. **

[Continues grunts and muffled yells.] 

**You should be able to pull the skin off with just your hands. If you find any points where the skin isn’t easily separating from the meat, use the blade or tip of your knife to slice the two apart and keep working. **

**Continue the line cut up the bicep across the pectorals and to the sternum; repeat on the opposite side, meeting at a ‘Y’ in the center. Continue separating skin from - **

**ELIAS **

[Yelling, garbled] 

Don’t you still want to know why? 

[Pause.] 

[Panting; spilling.] 

**MARCIA **

**Is there anything that governs us, on which we depend, what created us, what intelligence and knowledge of the universe gave us, which favors our creation, gives it eternity and - **

[Spitting] 

_ **happiness? ** _

**Why did you _do_ this to me, Elias? **

[Metallic clatter on stone.] 

[Pause.] 

[Breathing, slowing.] 

**ELIAS **

[Composed] 

I had... doubts about Jon, leading up to the Unknowing. 

**MARCIA **

_Jon?_ What does this have to do with - 

**ELIAS **

[Interrupting, forceful] 

_Everything_, Marcia. 

The Archivist was the key, the lynchpin, but Jon – well, I had no idea how _he_ might fair. Thus, I needed a fallback, in case he failed. 

Yet even then, I _knew_ that if he couldn’t do it, no one could. I decided my fallback would have to be a different plan entirely and, oh, _Marcia Carter,_ I found you. 

I am well-read in the works of our Mister Lovecraft. I’d have to be, considering he was my first attempt at this... roundabout method, an attempt made well before I truly understood. When I found you, it was better than a marking of the Spider, better than personality or drive – it was _fate. _

Carter, Lovecraft’s most commonly recurring character, witness to untold horrors and record-keeper of them all. 

[Slow, drawing out the name] 

Marcia, Herald of the sleeping Gods. 

**MARCIA **

**Pick up the knife. **

[Grunt; metallic ring.] 

**ELIAS **

You are getting better, stronger, Marcia. You would have made a great and terrible Herald. You were just outpaced. 

**MARCIA**

Outpaced by _what?_

**ELIAS **

By my Archive, _dear_. 

**MARCIA **

[Rushed, incensed] 

**Following the cut you have made from the center, make another cut towards the base of the neck - **

[A rumble, as though below ground.] 

Wha - 

**ELIAS **

[Laughing.] 

You were too late, Marcia. Too late, and led – in fact – astray. The Spider surely knew what had already been set in motion. 

[Static, low and soft, begins to build.] 

Even as we speak, the Archivist is coming into his full power, and the Dread Powers are coming to us from _so very far away. _

[Thunder growls above, pierced by crackling _booms_.] 

[Sirens wind up, distantly.] 

**MARCIA **

[Shouting] 

I’ll go back, I’ll burn down the Archives and you’ll be _nothing_ without them. 

**ELIAS **

[Laughter rises in pitch.] 

By my own hand, Marcia, I will be made King of the ruin, undying. 

[An explosion nearby, heat sizzles audibly; sirens multiply.] 

[Screams rise in chorus; a rumble, resembling a rousing groan, sounds above.] 

[Static pitches; the tape squeals.] 

**ELIAS **

Marcia Carter, what do you _see? _

**MARCIA **

[Whispered] 

I see -

**The pit - the maelstrom - A thousand shapes of _horror_, beyond all memory. **

**[**CLICK**]**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may return to this, after season five rolls around - either to follow alongside or give my girl a semi-happy ending.


End file.
